Finding a producer is like finding a wife.  You can ask all the right questions but how do you really know if they are the one?  And making music is making love.  It bears all the same healthy and unhealthy emotional vulnerabilities with in it’s process.  This is why you see bands break up while making a record.  Everything gets crazy in a room full of over tired creative types all hopped up on caffeine and afraid of being misrepresented.  But once you find the magic, all the relationships somehow find this beautiful harmony!  The hard part is getting through, together, alive!

Now that we made it through (our last breakup) together and alive we’re looking for that special someone again!

Our update is that we’ve narrowed it down to two.  We’ve talked to the first and I have to be honest, he said all the right things according to me.  I’ve learned over the past few years that you have to hold your cards close to your chest when talking to a new prospect for producer.  I feel like when I’ve said too much it has only supplied them with the right things to say and names to drop when I’m wary of the way things are being produced.  My own words are then used at me to regain my confidence.  It compromises really knowing what they’re envisioning.  And I want to know how they honestly hear it sounding.

So in our talk we let Mike Daly from LA speak.  Mike is currently writing and producing many artists, some with whom he has worked include Whiskeytown (Ryan Adams), Stephen Kellogg, the Pernice Brothers, Ambulance LTD, Patrick Park, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Marie Digby, Georgia, The Plain White T’s, Jessie Baylin and Donavon Frankenreiter.  We asked epic questions of grand proportions and his responses genuinely intrigued me.  There were some amazing things said on the call and it show signs of being an incredible match up.  He could most definitely be the one.  It’s happening so quick though and on one hand it feels like fate but on the other it almost seems to easy.  It feels so fast.  We had hopes for a fast recovery but this is happening very fast.  We have the songs and we’re ready but LA, in two weeks with someone we’ve never met in person!  If all goes well we will be in LA recording by the middle of March!  Can you believe that?

We’ll keep you posted on further updates…

So we played Columbia again tonight. Really I guess it was the first time. We opened for Winston Audio about a month ago and it was awesome. Tonight was the new music night and we got on the bill and killed it. Kent and I may have been a bit tipsy. It is not confirmed yet but either way it was a blast. We made some new friends and hopefully got the opportunity to book more shows. The last time we played it was pouring and the venue had multiple leaks with one right over the stage. Not just the general stage but the exact place I was standing. If i moved the water would drop right on my pedal board or worse right on my Tele pickups. Not awesome was the feeling of the chance of electrocution but I played and survived. Tonight we pulled up to the venue and guess what, rain. It was raining again but not as bad. After talking to the sound guy I felt much better when he told me they had fixed a lot of the leaks and the stage no longer was a sieve but an actual roof. Anyway I guess good things come to those who wait, so columbia we’re coming back and we are going to rock it over and over again. Hope you are ready because we are. See you soon!

Steven

I was talking to my mom last night and she asks me, “so how did you cut yourself at that show?” Then I read back over my blog today and realized that I didn’t actually tell you how I cut my hand at Workplay.

Well here’s how I think it happened, although I still have no idea when it happened or how I didn’t feel it! If you reference the picture below you will see an arrow pointing at what I think caused the bleeding.  It’s a flat head bolt that keeps the guitar bridge in place.  And it is sharp!  Add that to the fact that I strum my guitar pretty vigorously, especially when I’m dealing with a lot of good energy and you have guitar player with a bleeding hand.  And I don’t really care what they say about how a professional should attack a guitar.  I play like I play, with no reservations!  I’m all in baby!  Now I just have to figure out how to customize the top of that bolt before I lose too much blood.  Any ideas?

If you’re just now coming in on this blog role read the first part of this story here >> While my guitar gently bleeds.

So now you know.

So the show at Workplay (Birmingham AL) was absolutely amazing!  The energy of the place this past Wednesday night was engaging.  If it had to end, “Love You Live” was the best way to end something that was becoming so great.  Live 100.5 played our music when most other stations stuck in the bureaucracy of the industry would never even listen to it because they have no control over what they play on air.  Like it or not!  And when the fans started responding to our song ‘Coming Down’ in Birmingham Alabama, Live 100.5 played it even more!  We were honored to have been a part of this show.  And thank the people at Live 100.5 for everything they did and were trying to do.  It’s sad to see it go.

Now I must have lost myself in the energy of the night because half way through our set I looked down and most of my hand was covered in blood!  I noticed it because I saw splatters on the Workplay stage and I freaked out for a second in my head when I looked at my bloody hand and blood splattered on my guitar.  We started our set with ‘Feel It’.  It was feeling good, no pun intended.  Then we went into ‘Circles’ one of my personal favorite songs to play live.  People were singing the oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs with us and I may have already started bleeding by this point but I hadn’t noticed yet.  Then after Circles we went into a Johnny Cash cover of ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’.  That just pushed everything over the top.  The band was tearing this song up!!!  After we finished I notice the blood spots on the stage, then my guitar then I look at my hand and I’m like holy S@%$!  I’m bleeding!  A pretty good bit too.  I had done this once before while we were filming the music video last month so I didn’t completely lose it but I was (as un-rock and roll as it is) a little concerned!  The show must go on and I didn’t feel light headed so I took the band into ‘Enemies’.  A very appropriate song to bleed to, I think.  The whole song I’m thinking about my finger though so I end up not getting into it at all.  But between ‘Enemies’ and our new song ‘Light Up Pt. 1′ I bring up to the crowd the fact that I cut my finger on my guitar somehow and then I suddenly I felt better.  Now I’m feeling like some cool punk historical moment type thing with blood everywhere.  It’s like Sid Vicious stuff!  Then we started into our new song ‘Light Up Pt. 1′ on a completely different plane then we ever had before, bleeding and singing!  We ended our set with ‘Coming Down’ which I reminded the crowd they used to play on 100.5 last year but then stopped for some reason not by any fault of them!  They all laughed with us and then sang the song that they used to sing with the radio right there with us live at Workplay Theatre.  Love You Live and bleeding.  To everyone that was there thank you for supporting the music!

Check out this interview with Tim >>

HOOPLA MUSIC MAGAZINE | Buzz Artist The Enemy Lovers Interview

So today I downloaded the high res version of our new music video for ‘Coming Down’.  It took almost 2 hrs!  When you see it you’ll understand why.  It’s beautiful and clear.  It looks ridiculous!  Steven and I plugged the laptop into my stereo, cranked the volume, and watched it 3-4 times in a row.  We’re all very happy with how it came out and are exceedingly impressed with the two guys and their team who organized the whole thing.  The video shoot was led by Robert Hill and Taylor Hide, two extremely talented dudes from Birmingham AL.  We’ll be posting more detailed credits as we make the finishing touches on the release.  The majority of the video was shot right here in Asheville NC.  Pictures of the day were taken by C.W. Newel and you can look through all of them here.  I posted my favorites below.

I would tell you more in depth details about the video (because I’ve probably watched it 10 times today!) but I don’t want to ruin the surprise for everyone that was not at the video shoot.  And for those of you crazy fans that came to the video shoot and jumped around with us in the live performance scenes, we want to Thank you.  As you will soon see you brought the energy to the camera and to The Enemy Lovers!

**UPCOMING EVENT>> We are planning a ticketed Music Video Premier where you can join us to preview the video before we release it.  We’re throwing a party in honor of everyone that was involved on the project.  We’ll have drinks, behind the scenes footage, stories of the day etc.  And you can be a part of this…MORE DETAILS COMING SOON!

Tim

We have now completed all 5 days and have no recordings to show for it!  Who would have guessed that the first time we heavily advertise our recording experience and invited you all to join us it would end in complete disarray.  Even the first and only song we worked on while in the studio for a day and a half became the theme song for the whole experience.  (You can hear a preview of that rough demo in a video on our home page called “Falling Skies – The Drive DAY 1 of 5″.  We filmed this on the way to Atlanta with no idea of what was about to happen!)  Nothing went as planned this week but something has begun.  We saw the end of some things but also feel something just beginning.  It feels like The Enemy Lovers (as in just Steven and I) is no more and The Enemy Lovers (as in the whole band) has emerged out of this disaster.  We went into the studio in Atlanta as Tim and Steven recording music with Dan Hannon for The Enemy Lovers to us coming home to a band made up of more than just two brothers.  Although we have been playing live as The Enemy Lovers for almost a year now it has always been vague as to who we were.  A band or just two brothers?  We’ve not known what plans to make or not make trying to find our way through a music industry of mines.  We have tried to stay “flexible” in hopes of I don’t know what.  But a band had developed over this past year and now we see that we didn’t see it until the abrupt end in our professional relationship with our producer.  When we lost that safety net we began to see what had been developing here the whole time.  It’s our house now.  The Enemy Lovers house!  This is the band.  We make music.  We are now recording new demos and meeting with new producers.  Much is to come of this dreadfully beautiful week!

Thanks for coming with us.  Welcome to our house.

*FULL BAND BIO COMING SOON. Also look for blogs from every member of The Enemy Lovers.  Follow each of us on twitter.

**We have a NEW MUSIC VIDEO coming out very soon for ‘Coming Down’!  (I just saw the first edit and it is shocking how cool it looks.)  Look for more info on that premier.

Today was Day 4 in our “5 Days. 5 Songs.” venture and we have been recording new music as planned, kind of…

As you have probably read in our blog we are no longer in Atlanta recording with Dan Hannon.  We came home late Tuesday night after a bittersweet symphony of events.  It’s hard to explain what really happened, and a different story could probably be told from each perspective.  After a day reflecting on the situation all I can conclude is that everything got to a point where it could not be resolved.  A decision was made and things changed.  We are now home in Asheville, NC recording new music in The Enemy Lovers house.  This week is very different than you or I had imagined.  It’s been a revolutionary four days.

Steven and I spent this morning setting up our rehearsal space to record.  Being in the studio in Atlanta and then having it end so abruptly misplaced all of these creative juices that got stirred up in us.  We were having all of these ideas that needed a place to go.  So at around 12:30 we started tracking ‘Falling Skies’, again.  Ironically we still spent the day recording but in a completely different space and it’s actually turning out amazing.  We are very excited about how it is feeling and for me, how it is singing.  And fyi, Steven played some ridiculous guitar parts that I cannot wait for you to hear!

Sometimes I wonder if I knew exactly how an event would turn out would I even chose to still go through it.  Maybe it’s our not knowing that keeps us hoping.  These unavoidable personal/business conflicts make us decide who we are or who we want to be.  We make decisions and change things but things ultimately work out.  We’re all humans in between.  Despite all that has happened this week Steven and I are feeling good about where we are now as compared to where we were last week at this time.  Very good.  But still a little sad.

So it is Wednesday… yes we are supposed to be in the studio for another two days as well as today but we are not.  Unfortunately we had some issues that arose with our producer and evidently they were not able to be worked out.  This is a sad but exciting turn of events after the initial shock.  We arrived home this morning around 12:30 with a mix of emotions swirling around in our hearts.  To think of not using our producer anymore is really sad due to a relationship that we had built from the last EP and B-sides as well as Light Up.  As goes with any true relationships there are things that will not be fully agreed upon which I believe is not a bad thing, actually I think it is the complete opposite.  I think a true relationship should have disagreements and if there are none than maybe it is more of an acquaintance than a relationship.  Either way there were evidently irreconcilable issues that he had with us therefore leading him to withdraw from being our producer anymore.  So Day 3 resulted in losing our producer.

But when hard times come I think we have an opportunity to continue down a path that we did not know was there and see where it leads.  I, for one, am extremely excited about this.  We obviously are still a band, we still write music, we still play shows, and we’ll still record.  It will just be different than the last time, which can be a breeding place for creativity.  If there is one thing I love it’s creativity.  We are looking now for a new producer and we still plan on taking this band and doing great things.  I have no idea what the end of this path will be, but I do believe it is where we are supposed to be.  There is a push that needs to happen when you get too comfortable in the way you “always” do it, and a lot of times without this push you can end up with the same result as all the other times.  That is why I am excited.  This whole thing came as a “shock” that is pushing us out of our comfort zone.  ALWAYS a good thing!

I hope all of you are as excited as we are?  If you aren’t, then get excited!

Steven.

It’s 2:48 in the morning and we have just wrapped up Day 1.  Honestly it did not go according to plan.  And since we’re being honest and I’m tired and feeling a little over dramatic, let me explain it like this.  The feeling here tonight (this morning) is revolutionary.  I came here with this whole idea of how it would pan out and I spent the whole day trying to get that only to realize the idea had been changed before we got here.  Everything is different.  It’s ironic to me that 12 inches of snow fell right before we were supposed to come here.  And that we had to physically dig ourselves out only to see that snow had also metaphorically fallen on this experience and now we have to dig ourselves out, again.  This is why you should never blog this late at night when you’re this tired.  Everything seems like a mess.  All the ducks that we had in a neat row are now smashed to bits.  But I’m one to believe that our (meaning all of humanity’s) days are not lived by chance but where ever we find yourself is where we are meant to be…for some reason.  This is a great adventure for me and I’m on the edge of my seat.  What ever it is has got my attention now.  This is the first time we have ever been here.  The plans are changing and not only are we fine with it but we are insistent on finding what we came here for, even though what we came here for is different then what we originally thought.  It’s hard to get accustomed to change at first but once you see that the change HAS happened you dig deeper.  Tomorrow is a new day.  There is music to be made.

Speaking of tomorrow we’ve got a 3 person film crew coming in to film us in the studio and put a documentary of it together.  It’s the same crew that shot our music video a couple weeks ago and they are also bringing a copy of the new music video!!